France Warns of Several Unauthorized Cryptocurrency Platforms

France’s financial markets regulator has issued a new warning against unauthorized platforms offering cryptocurrency investments. The regulator has added four websites to its list of blacklisted domains offering crypto investments without authorization.

French Regulator’s Warning

The French financial markets regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), on Monday warned “the public against several companies proposing atypical investments without being authorized to do so.”

The AMF is an independent public authority responsible for ensuring that savings invested in financial products are protected. According to Law no. 2016-1691 on transparency, no investment offer can be directly marketed in France without a registration number or prior approval by the AMF.

Alongside Monday’s warning, the regulator also published a list of four “new unauthorized websites offering atypical investments.” The four websites are bitoraxe.com, solutioncrypto.com, solution-crypto.com, and connect-coin.fr. At the time of this writing, connect-coin.fr is already offline. The other three are still live but solution-crypto.com redirects all traffic to solutioncrypto.com.

The AMF previously published a list of 15 websites offering crypto investments without authorization. The regulator maintains three lists of unauthorized websites – one for forex products, one for binary options, and one for other goods including diamonds, wines, and cryptocurrencies. The agency started keeping track of blacklisted sites in July last year and began including crypto sites in December.

AMF Concerned About Crypto

The AMF has been tracking losses in cryptocurrencies through its Epargne Info-services center, which receives investment complaints and claims. During the AMF’s annual report presentation last month, Chairman Robert Ophèle said:

During the first four months of the year, out of the more than 4,000 requests processed by our Epargne Info-services center, 700 concerned crypto-assets with nearly 250 claims or reports reporting more than € 9 million (~US$10.43 million) in losses.

He added that cryptocurrencies have taken over binary options and highly leveraged contracts for difference (CFDs) as the most pressing problem.

France is currently creating a legal framework for initial coin offerings (ICOs), which is expected to be finalized next year. The agency started clamping down on bitcoin derivatives in February. In April, the country slashed the tax rate on crypto capital gains from 45% to 19%.

What do you think of the AMF warning investors of these unauthorized platforms? Let us know in the comments section below.